Saturday, August 23, 2014

Podcast Notes & Previews

Four episodes in, and I am fairly pleased with how the new podcast is shaping up. At the same time, I am much more aware of where I need to improve. For instance:

• When I'm recording just my own voice, I'm better reading an exact script. I'm not good speaking extemporaneously. I can't seem to find the "flow". I would be a terrible rapper. The problem is that this makes the actual content sound less interesting. It’s also a lot of work writing out everything I’m going to say, and that leaves less time and attention on thinking about what I actually think about the shows I am reviewing.

• On the other hand, I am really looking forward to doing reviews with guest hosts, the first of which is with Maddy Ruvolo, of the Disabled Girls Talk Podcast, to discuss "Friday Night Lights”. I hope that a conversation will sound more natural than a monologue, and lead to smarter insights and personal reactions.

• I think that in my first full review, I tried to answer too many questions, and make too many observations. I need to come up with a format where each TV show or character review deals at most 3 or 4 main points, or themes, or measures of quality. Expect experimentation with format in the next few episodes.

• Over the next few months of shows, I hope to explore some basic questions about disability on television … like why “representation” of disability matters, whether “offensive” depictions can do good, and whether it is possible for a show to address real life disability issues directly without being preachy.

If you haven’t listened to any of the podcast episodes yet, give them a try. You can listen in several different ways:

1. Listen here at the Disability Thinking blog, using the embedded players, like these:

This is a separate page just for the podcast. There’s a tab link for it at the top of the Disability Thinking blog. The Disability.TV page looks like a blog, but you won't find anything on it except for each episode, dated and organized, with an embedded player. It’s a convenient place to see all of the podcast episodes listed in order.

These two services operate a bit differently, but they both automate things so you always have new episodes ready to listen as soon as I produce them. And, you can save them, delete them, or reorganize them on your computer or mobile device however you like.

Full reviews are every two weeks. In between, I'll continue to do Mini-Casts, shorter episodes with a variety of bits like listener feedback, surveys and quiz questions, and special topics related to disability and popular culture.

Please do leave comments and suggestions for making this podcast better!